Voyager Project Manager George Textor to Retire

Textor has been the project manager since Voyager 2 completed its flyby of Neptune in 1989. Voyager 2 was the first spacecraft to visit all four of the giant, outer planets -- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and after its final planetary encounter, the spacecraft left the ecliptic plane in which most of the planets orbit and began the next phase of its journey. Both Voyager 1 and 2 are still functioning and searching for the heliopause, the boundary that represents the end of the Sun's magnetic influence in space. The spacecraft are also conducting fields and particles experiments.

Textor began his JPL career in 1967 as a mission operations planning engineer and he has since held various engineering and management positions on the Mariner Mars and Viking Orbiter missions. In 1978 he joined the Voyager Project as the encounter preparations manager. He served as deputy mission director from 1979-81; mission director from 1981-85; and was the Voyager deputy project manager until he assumed his present assignment.

Ed Massey, project manager of the Ulysses mission to the Sun, will succeed Textor as manager of the Voyager project. The Ulysses and Voyager missions also will be managed under the same office.

Prior to joining JPL, Textor was a pilot in the United States Air Force from 1956 to 1967.

Born on Dec. 12, 1932 in Wilkinsburg, PA, Textor earned an associate of arts degree from Pasadena City College in 1952 and a bachelor's degree from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1956.

Textor has twice received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for his work on the Voyager mission and has been awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for his work on the Viking Project.

He and his wife, Bonnie, live in Pasadena, Calif. They have four children and three grandchildren.